This study sought to explore distance education students’ readiness to use digital learning materials from a College of Distance Education programme which was in the process of transforming the face to face approach of delivery to a more digitized one in Ghana. Using a descriptive survey design, 400 distance learning students were randomly sampled to respond to a 14-item questionnaire. However, 306 students duly responded and completed the questionnaire on their readiness to use digital tools, their access to digital technologies and the internet as well as challenges they envisage to confront in using digitized learning materials. The results revealed that majority of the students affirmed their readiness to use digital learning materials for learning. While respondents of the study did not report high access levels of some digital technologies such as tablets/iPad, desktop computers and laptops, majority of the students had personal access to smartphones with internet capabilities. Thus, the study highlights the potential of mobile phone device usage in distance learning and contends that in the midst of challenges bothering on access levels and high cost of internet, distance education institutions can operate the policy on bring-your-own-device (BYOD) in which distance learners make use of their personally owned devices to access digital content to support their learning.

Digitizing distance learning materials: Measuring students’ readiness and intended challenges

Information and communication technology (ICT) is indeed an important tool to expose the rural community to development. Realizing the importance of ICT, a number of high impact ICT programs and projects have been introduced by the government. However, do the rural community especially their leaders which are the Village Development and Security Committee members (JKKK) use ICT? And more importantly do they perceive ICT as useful in their daily activities and tasks? This question brings us to the main objective of this paper which is to know the factors that influence the perceived usefulness towards ICT usage among the JKKK members in Peninsular Malaysia. Besides, this paper intends to investigate the level of perceived usefulness towards ICT usage among JKKK members and to reveal the most significant contributors for perceived usefulness towards ICT usage. This is a quantitative study whereby data were gathered using a questionnaire. Based on the multi stage random sampling, a total of 240 JKKK members have been selected as the respondents. Based on the analyses done, it can be concluded that respondents studied do have a high level of perceived usefulness towards ICT usage. All of the four factors studied have a positive and significant relationship towards ICT usage. Attitude was identified as the most significant contributor for perceived usefulness towards ICT usage while the four predictor variables explain about 60.0% of the variance/variation in perceived usefulness towards ICT usage.

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Perceived Usefulness of ICT Usage among JKKK Members in Peninsular Malaysia

The study aims to examine whether reflective writing using e-portfolios enhances high school students’ self-regulated learning. Participants included two classes of eighth-graders majoring in Information Processing and taking a course called ‘Website Design’ at a vocational high school in Taiwan. There were 41 students, with 18 males and 23 females. The experiment lasted 10 weeks, and students used e-portfolios to reflect on their learning. The results showed that students after using e-portfolios to reflect on their learning had significantly better self-regulated learning than before. This indicates that using e-portfolios for reflection enhanced self-regulated learning. It also shows that high-reflection students had significantly better self-regulated learning than moderate-reflection and low-reflection students, which implies that reflective performance had a significantly positive effect on self-regulated learning.

Does using e-portfolios for reflective writing enhance high school students’ self-regulated learning?

A study to investigate the current state of Information Communication Technology policy of the University of Ghana Distance Education (DE) programme and the extent of awareness and use of ICTs in general by the DE learners was carried out. The survey methodology was adopted using questionnaire and interview instruments. Respondents were made up of 120 DE students, the coordinator of the DE programme, and 5 workers at the DE unit. The questionnaires were distributed to all the 120 students while the workers responded to a semi-structured interview. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics (percentage frequency distribution and examining relationships). The main findings of the study revealed that there was a policy statement on providing ICT-based support to the DE learners; however, this policy has not yet been implemented. Most of the DE students were fully aware of ICT and majority of them use the internet across the regions. The students had positive attitude towards ICTs in that they deemed it necessary in the course of their studies and were willing to pay for ICT services. The main barriers identified that could affect the usefulness of the various ICTs were electricity, cost and accessibility. The study recommends among others, the forging of partnerships between distance education programmes and ICT companies, the networking of DE centres and the use of diverse ICT facilities, among others.

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Providing Information Communication Technology Support To Distance Education Students: A Case Of The University Of Ghana, Legon

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between reflection performance and the learning effect with learners in a web-based portfolio assessment environment The participants were 45 eighth graders randomly selected from computer classes at a middle school in Taiwan The reflection performance in this study included frequency of reviewing peers’ reflections, time spent reading peers’ reflections, and grades awarded for those reflections, whereas the learning effect included the project, test, and attitude The data collection was conducted through an online portfolio assessment (including reflection, project, and attitude) and a final test The results by Pearson’s correlation approach revealed that (a) the frequency of reviewing peers’ reflections was significantly and positively related with attitude; (b) the time spent reading peers’ reflections was significantly and positively related with project and attitude; and (c) the grade awarded for reflection was significantly and positively correlated with project and attitude Overall, among the three aspects of learning effect, attitude had the strongest relationship with reflection performance, followed by project and test

Is Reflection Performance Correlated to the Learning Effect in a Web-Based Portfolio Assessment Environment for Middle School Students?.

Introduction The use of information and communication technology (ICT) for distance learning provides tremendous potential for meeting the goal of Education for All (EFA), which broadly seeks to meet the learning needs of children, youth, and adults by 2015. In 2000 the world re- affirmed its 1990's declaration of 'Education for All' to make a collective commitment to expand educational opportunities to groups in society, including girls and women. Participants at the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal, "endorsed a comprehensive vision of education, anchored in human rights, affirming the importance of learning at all ages and emphasizing the need for special measures to reach the poorest, most vulnerable and most disadvantaged groups in society" (UNESCO, 2007, p. i). Among the six EFA goals is the goal to achieve gender equality by 2015. Like the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the achievement of all the six EFA goals depends to a large extent on the total empowerment of women whose role facilitates the capacity building of members of the family and the entire society. Meanwhile, the majority of women are in a marginalized position. A good number of them are located in some of the remotest parts of the world and largely affected by socio-cultural factors which deprive them of full access to higher education. This has made it necessary to explore alternative ways of meeting the gender equality goal in education. One of such avenues is the use of ICTs for distance or technology-mediated learning. Robinson (2008) has noted that the use of distance education and ICT has the potential to distribute opportunities for learning more widely and equitably. ICT is thus a powerful tool for providing educational services for both males and females and, most importantly, meeting the gender equality goal. Studies have shown that ICTs offer possibilities to women especially to engage in not only distance learning programs but e-commerce, e-governance, and all other aspects of developmental activities (Bisnath, 2004; Daly, 2003; Huyer & Sikoska, 2003; Kwapong, 2007c). There is a wide gender gap in education at the tertiary level in Ghana, a developing country in Sub-Saharan Africa. The male-female ratio has hovered around 70-30 (NCTE, 2006). Several measures, such as establishment of more public and private tertiary institutions, expansion of facilities, and increment in enrolment quota for females, have been adopted. Though these efforts have helped to increase enrolment, the required result of 50-50 male-female ratio in higher education has not been achieved yet. To widen access to education and overcome the mismatch between the existing facilities and qualified applicants the Government has sought to promote distance learning among all professionals across gender and geographical locations for the past decade. The use of ICTs for distance learning makes the delivery more widely and evenly distributed than just reliance on printed materials. Meanwhile, probably as a result of limited technological infrastructural development, print has been the pre-dominant mode of delivery in the distance learning programs. This study looks at the extent to which students privately utilize the few ICT facilities that are available in their localities that could form a basis for making a case for utilization of ICT applications in the distance learning programs. Profile of Study Areas The study covers four out of the ten regions of Ghana. These include the three regions in the northern part of the country, known as Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions (the deprived regions) and the Greater Accra Region (the endowed region). The three regions of the north are relatively deprived compared to Greater Accra Region, the national capital of the country. In the discussion of the results the three northern regions have been described as deprived and the Greater Accra Region has been described as endowed. …

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Comparing Knowledge and Usage of ICT among Male and Female Distance Learners of an Endowed and Deprived Area in a Developing Country in Africa

This chapter assessed the learning needs of street vendors in Accra, the capital city of Ghana. The findings revealed that vendors in the streets of Accra were made up predominantly of young people aged between the ages of 16 and 40 years. Seventy-five percent (75%) of these street vendors had gone through basic education and about 55% of them showed interest in furthering their learning. A majority of those who wished to further their education and indicated that they wished to be assisted in acquiring technical education which they figured out would enable them to generate regular revenues with which they can support themselves and their families. It was recommended that adult educators should assist street vendors in locating opportunities for the learning they have indicated and to support them in achieving their dream for the sake of national development.

Olivia Adwoa Tiwaa Frimpong Kwapong

Papers

Comparing Knowledge and Usage of ICT among Male and Female Distance Learners of an Endowed and Deprived Area in a Developing Country in Africa

Assessment of Learning Needs of Street Vendors in Ghana: Implications for Adult Education